Tag: fear

Challenges

Perhaps the Universe is just always ready with the next challenge, demanding and standing for our own improvement, our own development into the people we not only can be but were made to be.

…….

Well, we made it. And it was rough when we first arrived… That’s for sure. It took a lot for my man and me to stay present to what was needed versus what was freaking us out and stressing us and all the negative and not-helpful stuff of the situation. We’re staying in an AirBnB, and, put simply, it was not clean when we arrived. And it kept getting worse, the more we ventured into more of the house. As a reminder, I have OCD, making dirty particularly difficult for me. Separately, I care about justice and integrity – charging $405 a night (which also happens to be $100 more than most dates for this place) for a man older place with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a loft seems to me to be a price that would include cleanliness of the space. Period. So, we had a lot with which we had to deal for all of that. My man had to miss the lunch for my grandma’s birthday, but he still came and said hi to her at the start, before going back to the place to meet the cleaner. (Suffice it to say that the place has now been cleaned, and there was just a massive failure on the owner/manager’s part of not verifying that it was ever cleaned, despite having hired someone to do so.)

All that to say that life really does demand we become better versions of ourselves, whether we like it or not. Today has been one of those days for me. And, unfortunately, I’m also feeling sick in the throat… :/

Dear God, please, heal me with this rest I am allowing for myself tonight (in bed before nine!). Grant me beautiful health and well-being this week, that I might spend the week lovingly with my beloved family, your blessings to me. In your name and with gratitude, I pray. Amen.

P.S. Oh, and, to top it all off, I started menstruating almost a week earlier than expected today. Talk about having to gtf over it and make it work. This has been a day, for sure!

Post-a-day 2022

Distractions? Oder Directions?

*oder – (German) or

These beautiful and wonderful things keep coming up. I am grateful for each and every one of them. However, they have rather kept me from pursuing the main goal I had to pursue, now that my teaching position has ended: coding. I had set myself up for this path toward coding, and the main resource has been delayed, and I haven’t reached out yet to the secondary resource, because I’ve been so busy managing the tutoring that’s come up, along with the part-time job work and the other part-time job work and the tidying and catching up on things at home…

Have these things been coming up because they are distractions, requiring me to prove my dedication and desire to pursue this goal of coding right now? Or are they actually directions from God and the Universe, answering my prayers for clear guidance, showing me that diving fully into the coding is not what they need me to do right now?

God, help me to follow your will fully. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Stepping out

Sometimes, it’s really hard for me to go out, to go to new places or just typical could-be-dirty-type places. Sometimes, it’s not very big of a deal. Tonight, I was excited about the idea of going to one place – a clean place in my mind. Then, the excitement transferred to a new idea of watching the baseball game somewhere nearby over drinks, instead of and after the meeting with drinks farther away. As we got into details of where this other place would be, I started to struggle a bit. It became something that I wanted to do for my man, much more so than for myself or for us to have fun. I found pleasure in the idea mostly out of his desire to go out and do something, to be somewhere that isn’t home, doing something relaxing and enjoyable.

So, I asked my brother if he and his wife were interested, and they almost immediately joined the plan. I made it clear that finding a place was on them, though without being rude or mean. My man recommended two spots, and my brother picked one. Once my man finished with his meeting across town, we headed to join my brother and sister-in-law at the selected patio bar place. I was only a little scared about it all, and it proved to be very reasonable a place, with clean amenities, even at night (I’d been there once during the day already). I enjoyed my time there with my family, and I’m glad we went. Hopefully, my man and my brother both got the relaxation and bit of fun and variation they likely both were needing tonight, my man especially.

God, grant them both blessed refreshing sleep tonight, please, that they be best prepared to pursue and fulfill your will in their lives tomorrow. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Not-so cool

Last night, we went to a Halloween party. There was much alcohol drinking and some cigarette smoking. Music was not very loud, but people were somewhat loud. The space wast crowded, except in narrower passageways on occasion.

I had a decent time. I’m glad we went, as it was an important event for my man’s family. We also both looked awesome, both in terms of outfits and in terms of fitness and overall adorable-ness.

However, I typically prefer staying home over going to such events. I felt so fancy, going to a party and on a Saturday night… like all the normal people, I passively thought.

Coincidentally, the story I did in Duolingo tonight was all about how these two girls stayed home every Friday evening and watched their favorite television show, instead of ever going out anymore. When their flatmate walks out in a party dress and says she’s going out dancing, they decide to go with her. The one who declared they were going with her finds at the club that it is too dark, the music is too loud, it is too crowded, and her feet start hurting rather quickly into the night.

As I read the story, I couldn’t help but notice that, aside from the feet part, I usually experience the same things whenever I have to go out to things. Though, as in her case, no one else ever seems to care.

What was funny with the story itself was that, as this girl is commenting on these things, and declares that she wants to go home already, she asks, ‘Am I the only one who isn’t cool anymore?’, for they had said earlier that the cool thing to do was to go out on Friday nights. Her friend replies, ‘Don’t worry – you weren’t ever cool in the first place.’

And, somehow, I found immense delight in that statement. Perhaps it reminded me of me and my best friend, and how we always are honest with things, and how we find it comical when our honesty, to an outsider, could sound terribly mean, but that it is very much not a big deal to us. Also, though, she and I never really were considered “cool”, anyway. We were fun and smart and goofy and weird and kind and sweet and reliable and all sorts of good stuff. People got along with us rather easily, and enjoyed our presence, of course. But we just weren’t exactly ever cool. She was even student body president in high school. She got closer than I did to cool, but she still wasn’t cool. So, we would have definitely had a conversation like the one in this Duolingo story tonight, my best friend and I. And that was a good feeling.

Anyway, I absolutely could relate to the story in all levels, and I loved that ending to the story, somehow, in a very personal way. It was awesome. Thank you, God. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

The body speaks…

… but do we listen?

When the body stops working for you, what do you do? What can you do?

I truly believe it is a demanded chance for us to rest, not to push ourselves so hard as we have been lately, so hard as what made the body want so desperately to take a break (almost literally). If we don’t rest, it is all too likely to grow even worse, if not now, then soon enough.

Our bodies are speaking to us always, and not merely about what’s going on on the outside in life…

Post-a-day 2022

Relics

Look, I know relics are truly this really cool thing and all, and they’re an absolute blessing to those of us living now who get to cross paths with them, but they still kind of creep me out. Perhaps it has a lot to do with the fact that I don’t exactly like to touch people and their stuff in the first place, even when they’re alive and sanitary and everything. Leaving them dead and in pieces for a few hounded years, and then touched by thousands upon thousands of people doesn’t exactly make me more interested in touching them and their stuff…

Makes sense, at any rate…

Post-a-day 2022

Ugh

Went to chiropractor this morning. Went to gym at noon for the workout. During the second round of goblet squats – I had only ten pounds, because I’m taking it extremely light with weight compared to the recommended – I had a sharp pain on the side of my left thigh, in slow-mo fast-time set down/half dropped the weights between my legs, and then fell over to the right. I cried. Only a little, but I cried. It’s kind of terrifying when something that normally works easily suddenly gives out, when the body is suddenly unreliable to do the basics of keeping us upright. Suffice it to say that I left the rest of the goblet squats alone, and moved on. Now, I’m lying in bed with medium-high pain – and, I think, swelling – on the right side of my back… Goodness, help me, please.

I really need to be careful right now. My body made it clear to me that it wants a rest from these work-outs right now. I’m hoping I can still be active in other ways – the long-boarding was mostly great physically, so I know there are things I certainly can do – while my body gets the rest it needs from the intense workouts. Perhaps this is a means of getting me to go do all those things we’ve been wanting to go do, but never manage. Like the long-boarding. And golf. And bicycle riding. And, maybe, even frisbee.

Thank you, God, for this opportunity. Please, help us to see clearly what is truly awaiting us in this opportunity. Show us your will. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Sunday, fun day

Some nights, I just want to lie down backwards in my bed after I shower, and pass out, wet hair and all.

But then I start to feel the layer of I-ate-food-today in my mouth, and I have to get up and brush my teeth, and then the whole feeling is gone, and I just continue with my regular bedtime routines, and get it bed normally at the end of them all…

Hmm…

P.S. I learned to do basics with long boarding today! We had a handful of minutes of major frustration, in which I nearly got hit by two different cars, just after my man had me follow him off the trail and onto the road, so we could to go a water fountain he said was at the park nearby. He had turned the corner already, and so didn’t see either car near-incident. I freaked out, because I wasn’t good enough yet with the board to be handling such situations, and because I couldn’t find him either for guidance/encouragement/moral support or even for directions. (I also didn’t have my phone, because we didn’t want me having to be concerned about not breaking it if/whenever I fell, which he knew.) So, I was dealing with both fear and a bit of abandonment, on top of my tiredness and thirst (because no water bottle, for the change in balance it would cause). That was a rough several minutes, to be sure, and neither of us was on our greatest behavior.

Post-a-day 2022

Okay!

Last day of teaching for this assignment has completed! Woohoo!

We had a family dinner out tonight in celebration of my completion of the assignment. Now, onward to whatever else is next! (Sure, I most certainly have some big plans in place, but there is always a nearly-surprising amount of wiggle room in there for things to go entirely differently than intended – I have learned my lesson on that very well by this point!)

Dear God, please, help me to have clarity with each step of this, and guide me to fulfill your will in all that I do. Help me to be my best self with all that I am. Thank you for this blessing of a life. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022